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Article Excerpt
Patient education is a key to disease management, convalescence, and overall wellness maintenance. The medical and allied health literature identifies the important partnership of responsibility to be developed between the patient and health care provider in order to ensure proper health education (Epstein, Alper, & Quill, 2004; Salmon & Young, 2005). A person's entry into the acute care setting provides numerous opportunities for all members of the health care team to provide patient education. However, education is not effective for health and lifestyle change unless an appropriate approach is taken that considers both the learning needs of the patient and the necessary documentation to confirm teaching strategies ("How to Document," 1999). Documentation serves to identify specific educational needs, possible barriers to education, previous education received, and patient and family response to education.
The health care system offers an intricate, potentially overwhelming environment that may be difficult for patients and their families to navigate. Among the concerns of patients admitted to the hospital and their families are a sense of loss of self-determination over personal needs, threat of self-control, depression, and anxiety (Coyne, 2006; McLaughlin et al., 2005; Tornqvist, Mansson, Larsson, & Hallstrom, 2006). In addition to psychosocial concerns, culture and literacy also must be considered. Numerous studies cite difficulties in communication between health care providers and patients with low-literacy levels ("Communication with Patients," 1998; Mayeaux et al., 2004; Safeer & Keenan, 2005). The issue of provider education regarding cultural diversity and languages other than English likewise is encountered in the pertinent literature with regard to barriers of communication and sensitivity to the patient's culture (Deyirmenjian, Karam, & Salameh, 2006; Flacker, Park, & Sims, 2004). In the context of poor language skills, the most important information must be the focus of the communication and presented in small segments to achieve the educational objective (Bruccoliere, 2000).
Health care providers also need to consider the patient's hearing and vision. Hospitalization may occur suddenly, and patients admitted without their hearing aides or glasses may be hindered in education. Providing patient education to patients with hearing loss requires facing them, speaking clearly and slowly, and possibly using written materials. For patients with vision loss, using educational materials with larger font on white paper in bright light will facilitate reading (Bruccoliere, 2000).
Patient education also can decrease hospital length of stay and therefore health care costs (Merriman, 2008; Siggeirsdottir et al., 2005). It may be appreciated that the appropriate provision of care (using guidelines/instruction for disease and medication management) can have significant benefits for both the patient and health care system in terms of cost and use of various services (Latter, Yerrell, Rycroft-Malone, & Shaw, 2000), while the provision of a comprehensive teaching plan can improve patient understanding of the focus and need for disease management. Developing and documenting a comprehensive teaching plan allows for communication between health care team members, prevents duplication of patient teaching topics, and identifies topics that require additional review and reinforcement and the patient's input to such education (Kanak et al., 2008). Incomplete documentation can result in loss of valuable patient education opportunities and provision of information during a hospitalization when the current health care system is focusing on shorter lengths of stay. Documentation of patient education also...
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